Ten Popes Who Shook the World

Beginning of article

Ten Popes Who Shook the World. By Eamon Duffy. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011. Pp. 151. $25.00.)

The history of the papacy often attracts those whose historical acumen is secondary to their ideological agenda. It is refreshing to see a book that combines scholarly integrity with faith and a conviction that these ten men were, indeed, among the shepherds that Christ appointed to feed his sheep, without either idealization or condemnation. To write a history of the papacy in under 150 pages is a courageous act. Eamon Duffy's Ten Popes who Shook the World originated as a series of lectures given for the BBC Radio in 2007. When making a selection as rigorous as this …